Some pitch-by-pitch AAA stats

by ultxmxpx on May 1, 2007 6:59 PM EDT Comment 17 comments

Here are some pitch-by-pitch stats of some AAA prospects (with half being crappy Durham Bulls):

"#P" is the number of pitches thrown to each batter so far this year in AAA. "B" stands for balls, "S" for strikes which includes the following: called strikes (CS), swinging strikes (SW), foul balls (F), and balls hit in play (InP). P/PA is pitches per plate appearance. %S is the percentage of pitches that are strikes. Con% is the percent of swings that make contact with the ball (i.e. foul balls plus pitches hit in play divided by foul balls, balls hit in play, and swinging strikes). SW% is the percentage of pitches that are swinging strikes. And Sw% is the percent of pitches swung at. So an aggressive hitter will have a high Sw%. "Eye" is just really useless and is balls divided by pitches taken (i.e. balls plus called strikes).

Butler's stats show he was ready for the majors. He has a contact rate like Loney has, but he has also hit 6 home runs. Evidence of the 18/12 BB/SO ratio, you can see that pitches were afraid of him with just 55% of pitches being strikes and shows that he can learn more in the majors than AAA at this point.

B and S1 would be what the pitch count goes to in an average plate appearance. It would include ball 4 of a walk or strike 3 of strikeout but it wouldn't consider a ball hit into play as a strike. S2 would be how many strikes are thrown in an average plate appearance and would include the strikes associated with 2-strike fouls and balls hit into play. K% is the percentage of batters faced that are struckout and likewise with BB%. The cutoff "GO/" is GO/FO. LO would be line out and would perhaps mean more if it included line drives that fall for hits.... it relies a lot on the scorekeeper's opinion anyways.

The following are pitching charts. The numbers are the percentage of pitches that are thrown in that portion of the strike zone. The chart is from the view of the catcher. It uses mlb gameday and the xml pages associated with it. It surely has its flaws, but it can paint a general picture. So here:
Hammel:

J.P. Howell:

Niemann:

Sonnanstine:

Talbot:

Lincecum:

Bailey:

Gallardo:

Garza:

Hughes:

Adam Miller:

McGowan:

Slowey:

Everything about Lincecum is absolutely disgusting. The pitch chart shows him keeping balls down in the zone like absolutely no one else is.

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McGowan

Did you do it for just these groups of people? I'm curious to see if McGowan's broken down stats back up his great on the surface ones.

Rios is the next Juan Gonzales, thats right, I said it.

by KaoticKlown on May 1, 2007 7:16 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

umh

yeah, those were the only guys I did. But I just got stats up for Dustin. It only took like 15 minutes to do. As you can see, he's whiffing guys, but his control has been below par. His batting counts are having as many balls as strikes. He's not allowing many XBH... his BAA isn't bad. He's not getting many line outs. Tough call there. But with those balls he probably falls back to earth just a bit.

by ultxmxpx on May 1, 2007 10:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks

Thanks for the info, sorry if I kind of sounded like an ass when I asked that, it's a very cool study you put together.

Rios is the next Juan Gonzales, thats right, I said it.

by KaoticKlown on May 1, 2007 10:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

___

It's all good. And it's nice for you to call it a study.

by ultxmxpx on May 2, 2007 12:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Lincecum

Interesting, because last year, I think he yielded more fly outs than groundouts. In an interview last season, he said he threw only a 4 seam fastball and seemed somewhat dismissive of the two seamer. There was a pic in BA.com from ST showing him clearly holding a two seam grip. The marked increase in GO's this year would seem to support the notion that he is throwing the two seamer with success. Is there anything he can't throw? He's even said to have knuckleball!!

by DrBGiantsfan on May 1, 2007 8:02 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Knuckleball

If you're serious, Tim Lincecum will officially reach God status

I'll be the first A+ prospect...

by ufoboy90 on May 1, 2007 8:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I've read this too

Lincecum has a knuckleball that the Giants have absolutely forbid him to throw.

by samjjones on May 2, 2007 12:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

nice work

how did you get the xml files?

Check out my NEW Chicago Cubs Minor League System website: Road To Wrigley

by jonpyardi on May 1, 2007 8:10 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

xml

Here's the directory: http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/ to get AAA files just go to "aaa" and the year 2007. You can also get the mlb gameday data and do stuff like one guy that's writing for baseballanalysts.com is doing. Once you get a hang of things (which won't take too long if you know how to use excel) and have some templates to work around it doesn't take too much time to do this crap. If you or someone else wanted to do some of the crap, I could send some excel files to you to get a good working model. Jeff Sackman of minorleaguesplits could probably do this crap fairly easily for all ML and AAA players.

by ultxmxpx on May 1, 2007 10:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks

This is really good stuff, good find.

Check out my NEW Chicago Cubs Minor League System website: Road To Wrigley

by jonpyardi on May 2, 2007 8:09 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

sonnanstine

ha. sonnanstine's not messing around, is he. i wouldn't expect a notorious command artist to hang around the center of the plate 20% of the time. (am i interpreting that correctly?)

by wily mo on May 1, 2007 8:12 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

not a mistake

He deliberately throws first pitch strikes 9 out of 10 times meaning he's throwing some fastballs down the pipe on strike 1, plus his changeup tends to move from the upper part of the zone to the middle of the plate.

The movement on his pitches allows him to throw pitches in the zone and still miss bats.

On that list, he's 3rd in swinging strikes and 4th in contact percentage while being the pitcher guys swing the most against.

The stats support that he's not merely a finesse pitcher, but a guy who pounds the zone and still has the stuff to strike guys out. It's rare to find a guy who doesn't have to make guys chase to get K's, which is good and bad for Sonny.

It means 2 things.

He's got great movement and deception.
He's not going to miss as many bats while in the zone against the premier hitters in the world.

Rays in '08....

by youALREADYknow on May 1, 2007 8:32 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Kevin Slowey

I'd be very interested to see that info on Kevin Slowey if you have it.

Thanks,

Charlie

Go Pirates!!!

by cool hand Charlie on May 1, 2007 10:33 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Slowey

I figured he'd be an interesting one so I computed his stats and put it up. He is missing a decent amount of bats. 71% of his pitches are strikes, and the batters know this and are swinging 54% of the time and he's still missing bats. It's interesting to note his GO/FO ratio of 0.60. Of the 10 hits he's allowed 4 have been XBH (3 doubles, 1 HR), so the long ball could be more of a problem for him in the majors... and maybe it shows he could get hit harder even in AAA. His pitch chart isn't great, certainly not bad either... he's not just throwing pitches down the center. Perhaps it shows one reason he gets so many air outs.

by ultxmxpx on May 2, 2007 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks for the info!

Hello ultxmxpx,

Thanks for the info. - greatly appreciated! :-)

If I'm reading the chart correctly, Miller averages the lowest number of pitches per plate appearance, at just 3.5. That probably explains why he was able to pitch a 9-inning complete game shutout with 11 Ks last year at AA Akron, yet only threw 97 pitches.

I know he has started to focus more on getting outs as quickly as possible, which is why his groundball ratio has been very good for at least the last year or two (nearly 2 to 1 or so if I remember correctly); he's focusing more on the GO and not so much on the K - only when he needs to get one, he'll go for it, or if the hitter can't make contact against him. Otherwise, Miller is more inclined to try to let the hitter put the ball in play and get the out as quickly as possible so he can go deeper into the game.

Take care and have a great day!

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on May 2, 2007 3:08 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs